DPRK Ground Forces in Russia - Analysis of Language Used in a Video of North Korean Soldiers Receiving Equipment at RAF facilities in Russia

Introduction

A 28 second video supposedly detailing DPRK soldiers receiving Russian military equipment at a facility in the Vladivostok-located Sergievsky Training Ground was posted via 'X' on the 19th of October by SPRAVDI, a Ukranian-Government affiliated information outlet. The exact date of the video is unknown, however is assumed to have been taken within at least 7 days of the video being posted. Our team of analysts here at Syriacus Consulting have provided the following translations for the content of the video. In short, the video shows the presence of Korean speakers who are most likely using a North Korean accent. Alongside them are also Russian speakers conversing with each other. A full analysis of the video can be read below.

Confidence scale
Very High Confidence - 95%+
High confidence - 75-95%
Medium Confidence - 45-65%
Low Confidence - 25-45%
Very Low Confidence >25%

07 SECONDS

Language Used - Korean - Very High Confidence

Content of speech - "Don't cross over" - "넘어가지 말라"/"Nom-oh-gah-ji Malla" - High confidence

Dialect (intonation) - Generic North Korean intonation - High confidence

Dialect (word choice) - No particular words identified of dialect significance

Speaker Identified? - Possibly - The man seen in the video between 00 SECONDS and 11 SECONDS standing stationary, wearing matching camo cap and parka - Very Low Confidence

Notes - Speaker is using informal speech in a manner that denotes an order to a subordinate - Person speaking is very likely a senior NCO or officer (HIGH CONFIDENCE). This is identified by the lack of any formal speech endings such as '요'/'Yoh', '십시오'/'Sib-si-oh' or '(하)세요'/(Ha)say-oh'

17-20 SECONDS

Language Used - Korean - Very High Confidence

Content of speech - BELOW
(17 SECONDS) "I don't have it!" - "Да нет у меня"/"Da net u menya" - High confidence
(18 SECONDS) UNIDENTIFIED
(18.5-20 SECONDS) "Well, use *UNIDENTIFIED*" - "Используй"/"Ispol'zuy" (Spoken as an order/request) - Medium confidence

Dialect (intonation) - No notable intonation

Dialect (word choice) - No particular words identified of dialect significance

Speaker Identified? - Possibly - Possibly the two men seen between 11 SECONDS and 20 SECONDS, one seated to the left of the frame wearing a matching set of camo cap and jacket and the other standing, holding carboard and wearing no cap, a khaki undershirt and uniform pants. - VERY LOW CONFIDENCE

Notes - Language used is informal and exasperated (HIGH CONFIDENCE) - Joint Russian/Korean linguist has identified that one of the speakers may have been speaking Korean just before the first Russian language sentence was identified (VERY LOW CONFIDENCE)

25-26 SECONDS

Language Used - Korean - Very High Confidence

Content of speech - "Hey, hey, hey!" (As a means to grab attention) - "야, 야, 야!"/"Yah, Yah, Yah!" - Very High confidence

Dialect (intonation) - Generic North Korean intonation - High confidence

Dialect (word choice) - No particular words identified of dialect significance

Speaker Identified? - Unidentified, but linguistically, contextually and tonally very similar to the speaker heard at 07 SECONDS - Medium Confidence

Notes - Language used is very informal as the use of 'Yah' is solely used by people substantially more senior than the person it's being used on. In a military context, this would only be used by someone directing orders to subordinates, such as a senior NCO or officer. (HIGH CONFIDENCE)

Overall analysis of video content

Language used throughout the video is a mixture of both Russian and Korean (VERY HIGH CONFIDENCE), the intonation of the spoken dialect is of the North Korean dialect (HIGH CONFIDENCE), however no specific words of particular North Korean origin/specificity were used. The content of the Korean language used is in the context of a superior officer or NCO giving orders to subordinates (VERY HIGH CONFIDENCE) however no speakers could be visually identified in the video as being directly responsible for the spoken content.

Supporting Evidence

YTN News, a reliable (FM 2-22.3/NATO scale B2/B1 source) in South Korea has also translated the video with results very similar to our own. Results can be viewed here (source is in Korean language)

Additional remarks

Translation of the video content was done to the best of our linguists ability, together they make up native speakers of both Russian and Korean with the former also being fluent in Korean. Due to the poor quality of the video and its respective audio, it was difficult to identify certain language used. Words identified have been individually assessed to the above confidence scale.

I'd like to extend my thanks to our very hardworking lingusits at Syriacus Consulting, who worked tirelessly to give the best possible analysis of the above video. Their services are available for a multitude of translation and analysis purposes and they hold an expertise in Russian and Korean at a native level. We are also proud to exclusively host the only Yakut/Sakha language translation and analysis capacity available for English-speaking clients.

I would also like to extend my thanks to Ryan McBeth, an incredibly hardworking and talented OSINT specialist & Retired US Army Sergeant First Class who featured our work in his video on the same topic. We also kindly ask that you please also consider subscribing to his substack